28: Chapter 28 Bryce the Hunter
After waking up, Liu Xuan ran over to check the quest board. Over 1,000 quests had already been completed; it looked like the speed was quite fast.
With every quest completed, there was one less remaining, and everyone was scrambling to do them. They should be able to finish all 10,000 quests within two or three days and unlock the subsequent campaign.
While everyone else was still busy with quests, Liu Xuan prepared to go grind some stats.
However, before that, he had to go process the few pieces of giant salamander skin dropped by the Giant Salamander.
When he arrived at the leatherworker's, as soon as Liu Xuan took out the giant salamander skin, the leatherworker's eyes went straight.
He held it in his hands, touching it over and over, with an expression as if he had just seen a beautiful woman.
Liu Xuan's mouth twitched. "Boss, can you make it or not?"
The leatherworker finally put it down reluctantly. "I apologize, but this item is simply too precious. With my skill level, I only have a fifty percent chance of successfully crafting it into equipment. Unless you find those high-level leatherworkers from the big cities back in the day, they would have a one hundred percent success rate."
"High-level leatherworker?" Liu Xuan raised an eyebrow. Could it be a hidden quest?
"Where is he?"
"I don't know." The leatherworker shook his head. "After the other side of the river fell, we don't even know if that person is still alive."
"Then what's the point of saying that?"
Liu Xuan didn't want to gamble on a fifty percent chance. After the outpost campaign ended, there was no notification that it had turned into a dungeon like the Logging Camp or the quarry earlier, which meant the Giant Salamander was a one-time encounter; once defeated, it was gone.
That meant there was likely no other way to obtain this giant salamander skin.
It would be such a pity if the equipment crafting failed.
"Right, you said you weren't confident in making equipment, but couldn't this item also be made into backpacks?"
"I can make backpacks, but are you sure you want to use such precious material for that? Backpacks can be made from all kinds of leather, and it's not impossible to make larger bags with other leather in the future. But this giant salamander skin, if you find a high-level leatherworker, could be crafted into Epic-quality equipment."
Epic quality?
That was indeed not bad; the best equipment he had obtained so far was only Rare quality.
"What about the backpacks? How many slots would they have?"
"Four pieces of skin can make four 20-slot backpacks."
Tsk, that's not bad either.
Liu Xuan was currently still using a 5-slot Snake Skin Bag.
However, after considering it for a while, Liu Xuan decided to hold onto it for now and see if he could find a high-level leatherworker later.
If the backpacks were a bit small, so be it; he could always mail them to Zhang Meng first anyway.
Zhang Meng: ???
As for whether that high-level leatherworker was dead or alive, Liu Xuan felt certain that he must still be alive.
This leatherworker in the Novice Village clearly had limited skills. Once players leveled up and obtained higher-level monster leather, he probably wouldn't be able to craft anything with it.
Therefore, there must be a high-level leatherworker later on.
After all, the mechanism of this battlefield was that the drop rate for monster equipment was extremely low, and most of it relied on crafting with materials.
How could the game be played if there were no leatherworkers?
After packing up, Liu Xuan pondered where to go to level up and grind stats.
Due to the experience bonus and quests, the warriors on the 2468 battlefield were now at relatively high levels. In the time it took Liu Xuan to take a nap, most people's levels were around level 6.
Therefore, from Woodland Rats to Shadow Wolves, people were already fighting them, and if he went, he would have to compete for kills.
The Giant Venomous Insects and such further ahead weren't dense enough, making them too inefficient to grind.
Just as Liu Xuan was struggling with what to do, he suddenly saw someone in the chat channel talking about the dungeon.
"Damn, my first time running a dungeon, and this Logging Camp is way too hard, right? How did the big shot solo it back then?"
"Fun fact: we are playing a simplified version."
"To the person above, you don't have to kill all the monsters inside; their aggro isn't linked. Someone has already figured out the optimal strategy: clear out the few waves of monsters near the piles of wood on the east side of the Logging Camp, and then have a nimble ranged player lure the boss over.
This way, his overpowered charge can be negated by blocking line of sight. When he hits a wall, he will be stunned for 3 seconds, making him much easier to fight."
"That's how we're doing it too. We're currently farming this dungeon repeatedly. The boss has a chance to drop those two weapons of his, and it also 100% drops a piece of Thick Porcupine Skin, both of which are Rare quality. As long as we save up for a while, we can get a piece of Rare equipment."
Liu Xuan looked at the chat content from these people, and his heart stirred.
In the previous announcement, it said that after the Logging Camp became a five-player dungeon, the difficulty decreased. He had thought it meant they had removed some of the small monsters.
After all, how could 5 people fight two or three hundred monsters?
But now it seemed the number of monsters might not have been reduced; it was just that their aggro had been separated, making it less likely to pull monsters from the entire dungeon.
This certainly made it easier for five-player parties to clear.
Hmm, it also made it convenient for him to grind experience and stats.
Liu Xuan stroked his chin. He was currently level 9 with 3546/5000 experience, and he could still enjoy the experience bonus for a while.
So, he immediately set off toward the Logging Camp. What made him somewhat helpless was that the road was full of people leveling up.
These people were also very polite; although they didn't know Liu Xuan, seeing him alone, they all asked if he wanted to join their party.
It was too time-consuming. Liu Xuan had no choice but to leave the road leading to the Logging Camp and turn to head deep into the forest, hoping to take a detour to the Logging Camp.
This way, he gradually stopped running into people on the way.
After traveling for about 20 minutes, Liu Xuan suddenly heard the crisp sound of running water.
Following the sound, he saw that there was actually a small stream in this forest. On the muddy ground by the stream, there were many animal footprints—monkeys, wolves, and more.
Liu Xuan also discovered a set of human footprints among them.
At first, he thought, could it be that someone had accidentally run here while grinding monsters?
But the footprints extended exactly from the side of the stream into the forest, with none elsewhere; it was clear they had come over to drink water.
Only NPCs would do such a thing!
Thinking of Bell, whom he had also met in the forest before, Liu Xuan wondered if it might have been left by that guy, so he began to follow the footprints to search.
After leaving the stream, the footprints became increasingly unclear. Fortunately, he could still see traces of branches and bushes being trampled, so he didn't lose the trail.
About ten minutes later, Liu Xuan finally found his target: a tree hole blocked by wooden boards, with many traces of human activity left nearby.
Liu Xuan stepped forward and knocked on the wooden boards.
"Knock, knock, knock~"
No one answered, so he knocked again.
"Who is it?!"
After a few seconds, a man's vigilant voice came from inside.
"I am a warrior from the village. Who is inside?"
"A warrior?" The voice inside suddenly became excited. "A warrior from the village!!!"
There was a sound of stones and wooden boards being moved inside. As the board blocking the hole was pushed open, a disheveled man carrying a bow and arrows crawled out.
He looked at Liu Xuan and stepped forward excitedly. "Are you really from the village?"
A pungent odor rushed toward his face, and Liu Xuan quickly stepped back two paces. "Of course, there's no other place nearby where people live."
"Right, right, right. So, the village is safe now?"
"That's correct."
The man breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this. Liu Xuan took the opportunity to use Eye of Insight to check the other party's information.
[ Hunter Bryce ]
Level: 5
Attack: 40
HP: 400